


Ordination

by GoWithTheFlo20



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alpha Severus Snape, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Apparently Snape Has A Minor Kink For Hands, But it's there, F/M, Female Harry Potter, Fluff and Smut, His Voice Does Things To Poppy, I have no idea where this is going, It might be absolutely terrible., Knotting, Literally In The First Chapter, Masturbation, Mating Bites, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, My First Smut, Omega Harry, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Scenting, Severus Snape Needs a Hug, Shameless Smut, Size Difference, Size Kink, Slytherin Harry Potter, Smut that grew legs and got itself some plot, Time Travel, Undercover Gaunt, Young Severus Snape, be warned, only a little
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:42:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24147577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoWithTheFlo20/pseuds/GoWithTheFlo20
Summary: Severus Snape, Seventeen year old Slytherin, had his life mapped out to the finest detail. He would finish his last year at Hogwarts, obtain a Potions Mastery, and from there, he was free. As an Alpha who had never gone into a rut before, the worries that typically troubled his classmates didn't seem to faze into the equation. He was thankful, really. The whole thing seemed entirely too bothersome.Then she came.Poppy Potter, sixteen and wayward, in a last ditch effort to win the war that had wrecked her world and seen many a good witch and wizard die, goes on one last mission into the past undercover as a Gaunt. She might be an Omega, something usually seen as small and sweet and soft, but that had never stopped her before.Then she was placed next to a young Severus Snape in Potions.Merlin help them both.Or: The A/B/O Severus/Fem!Harry fic no one wanted, that perhaps grew some legs while I wasn't looking, and got itself a little bit of plot. Not a lot, this is mostly pure, uncut smut, but there is some.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa Black Malfoy, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 39
Kudos: 471





	1. Positively Fucked.

Severus Snape was not stupid. Far from it. Distrustful? Yes. Condescending? Many would say so. Dry? Of course. Prejudiced? That too. However, stupid was never a label easily stuck to him, for all his faults and flaws.

And he had many.

He knew this.

Again, he was not stupid.

He was not a man easy to trust, and swifter to tell a lie if it got him what he wants, even at seventeen. He was good at it too. Silver-tongued, they called him. Charming, in a droll way. Flattery gets you far in life, he learned, if you use it frugally. The right compliment to the right wife leads to her husband buying stocks in your business.

Or a demand for a duel, if you lay it on a bit _too_ thickly. 

Indeed, Severus Snape knew how to play people.

He had ambition in his blood, rich and hot, that saw him push through the disturbing shroud of poverty that blanketed him as a child. Growing up as he did, in third hand-me-downs, his stomach knotted in hunger from his father spending the last of their already slim purses on his gambling habit, with bruises for birthday presents and split lips for bedtime kisses, gave him a drive many of his contemporaries lacked. To never go back.

Only forward.

He knew exactly what he wanted, how to get it, and in truth, it did not really trouble him who he had to trample on to get there.

The world was a cold, cruel place, and only those with fangs survived. 

For a Slytherin, he was a galleon a dozen.

For a man? Perhaps not so much.

For an Alpha, he was _definitely_ not so typical.

He knew this too. He had the bulk, the height, that was characteristic of his designation. The aura that puts people on edge, yeah, he had _that_ in the cauldrons. Yet, he was not handsome. Not in the way Lucius was. Or Dolohov or Rosier. Or, sweet Circe forbid, Potter.

There was an archetypal prowl to an Alpha. A great cat skulking. Snape lacked it. More bat than cat. There was no grace to his frame. No glossy finish. He was big, and a bit ungainly, still growing his mother argued, and when he walked into a room, all six-foot-three of him, people noticed in a not so nice way.

His ears were too big.

The same for his nose.

He was sullen, and surly, and sallow. 

And he was perfectly fine with that.

For while he did not quite look like the typical Alpha, neither did he act like it. He did not swagger. He did not preen. He did _not_ display his glands on his wrists or neck with strategically unbuttoned robes and rolled sleeves for the Betas or the sparse Omegas to drool at. To him, it was not a badge of honour.

It was something to _overcome._

Severus Snape was _more_ than his designation.

Perhaps it was because he did not fall into the traps most Alpha’s do. He did not feel the heat, as Lucius described one night in their dormitory in third year, of being in an Omega’s presence as Lucius did around Narcissa Black.

He did not make a right prat out of himself as Rodolphus Lestrange did, after smelling Bellatrix's, an Alpha, scent in the hall, where he went on to steal her robes from her trunk that night trying to roll and smother himself in the scent, before being caught by Filch of all people.

His glands never, not once, pulsed, as he saw Mulciber’s do when he caught a whiff of Carrow on wind while they watched the quidditch match between Slytherin and Hufflepuff.

Unlike his House brethren, he had never been in a rut, not _one_ , where he had to be sent home or confined to the hospital wing until the dreaded week-long heat was over.

His mother simply told him he was a late bloomer, like her. 

Severus thought there was something broken in him.

A lot of _things_ broken in him. 

He smelled them, certainly. His nose, as Lucius joked, was big enough to smell the whole Grand Hall in a single inhale, and he was born with fervently strong senses. There was no escaping that. He smelled the Betas and Alphas, and the few Omegas that swarmed Hogwarts halls. Beta’s smelled bland. Eroded. Unobtrusive, but completely uninteresting. Alpha’s naturally had an acidic bounce to their aroma. Sharp. Keen. Revoltingly unmistakable. Omega’s-

Well, he only knew of three, given how rare they were.

Narcissa, Rodolphus, and Remus Lupin.

It was… Sweet. Sugary almost. Like fruit just on the wrong side of ripe. Nauseating.

And that was the problem, he found.

They were not _meant_ to smell sickening.

Yet, they did to him.

Horribly syrupy and irritating to his delicate senses.

Like bleach mixed with sugar water and that cheap flowery perfume that second year nightmare, Umbridge, so adored dousing herself in to try and trick others into believing she was an Omega.

Now she _was_ stupid. 

He only remembered her name so he could sit as far away from the chit as possible at lunch and dinner.

Severus was okay with that.

_Really._

He was not a typical Alpha. He was not, like his friends, transfixed with the ideas of mates and heat cycles and perfect balances. He had seen, first-hand, how horribly wrong Omega and Alpha bonds can go. His poor mother and his bastard of a father the perfect example.

Even Lily Evans, perhaps the one girl he had gotten closest to, the one scent he could halfway stand, before the whole ‘mudblood’ disaster last year, smelt… Alright. Clean, like fresh laundry, with the orange peel spring of an Alpha, pleasant but… Just that.

It was always just _that._

Severus thought, accurately, that he had dodged the killing curse.

Without the heady cocktail of hormones and urges his designation was normally pumped full of, he had time to focus on the things that _truly_ matter. He became the best of his year, only falling behind Potter in Defence, Transfiguration and bloody Quidditch.

As if the latter was going to be actually important in the real world once they leave at the end of the year.

He became a protégée in Potions.

Slughorn was, this term, in talks with Dumbledore about taking him on in an apprenticeship after their final year.

From there, after his Mastery, Severus could do as he liked, far from the headache of Alphas, Betas and Omegas. 

Perhaps open his own apothecary.

Perhaps work for the Potion department of Saint Mungo’s.

Perhaps he would even start his own research.

Severus Snape had a plan, well-oiled and tightly rigged, and nothing was going to get in the way.

Only, _something_ did get in the way.

_She_ got in the way.

Threw a giant Omega shaped wrench into his machine and laughed as it sparked and fell apart right before his eyes.

Severus Snape was not stupid.

As soon as he smelled her, he knew he was fucked.

Metaphorically, absolutely.

He only prayed it was physically too.

Severus did not pay much attention to the welcoming feast. That was his first mistake of many. He knew Dumbledore’s lines as he knew his potions textbook: from cover to cover. If you had heard one welcoming feast, you had heard them all.

So, he zoned out.

His thoughts drifted to the last year potions project he was undertaking.

Connecting dots, listing ingredients, tweaking the recipes he had mentally memorized.

Perhaps if he used pure aconite instead of essence, it would shave the brewing time down by at least fifteen minutes and then-

There was a murmur as the first years came doddering in, slight and jumpy, the odour of anxiety blistering in the air around them.

Nothing new.

The whispers, however, that stoked up from his table like flames of a bonfire _were._

_“Did Dumbledore say Durmstrang? I can see that black haired one coming from there, but the others? No way. Too clean if you catch my drift.”_

_“Two Sickles on the brunette being Ravenclaw.”_

_“Did you see that scar over her eye? What do you think caused that?”_

_“Bit odd, ain’t it? Having transfers this late.”_

_“Betas, the lot of them… Well, apart from the one with the scar. Look at that scowl. Alpha. She’d be pretty if she smiled more. Mother always says a lady should-”_

Severus snapped up from glaring down at his empty plate, and scanned the small first-year crowd waiting to be sorted.

There was nothing to see, until you got to the back of the throng.

Four teenagers stood in black robes, unsorted. Giants in the small sea.

Well… Comparatively giants.

The brunette girl stood with her nose high, proud, more outrageous hair than anything else. The boy beside her was built like a beater, squat and square and painfully Beta. Ginger too, and, without much more than a sweeping glance, it was easy to see the Weasley in him.

The tallest of the quartet was a lithe fellow, brown haired, a bit… Twitchy.

And the smallest-

Snape could not get a good look at her. She stood with her back to them, facing her friends. He only knew she was small, barely up to his chest if they stood side by side, crowned in a black curl so dark it was almost blue underneath the candlelight. Which was strange for an Alpha. To be so small. Tiny, really.

Her shoulders shook, and he thought she might be laughing at something the tawny haired fellow was blushing over.

He found himself leaning closer, if but to catch a waft of her voice.

He heard nothing over the din of the Grand Hall.

He could not scent them from their distance, either.

Even if he could, he didn’t feel the need to.

Snape could piece together the murmurs, and the picture he saw was boring.

Transfers form Durmstrang, as odd as that was, coming to finish their final year.

Nothing more, nothing less.

He sat back and washed his hands of the entire thing.

It had nothing to do with him. As a Slytherin, you learned quickly when, how, and why to become involved.

Nevertheless, Snape found himself… Watching. Trying to catch a glimpse of the last in the quartet. A hint. A peek. And-

He shook his head.

_Tired._

He was exhausted. He had stayed up all last night trying to finish going over his syllabus for this year. However, soon they were called one by one, mixed in with the first years.

“Hermione Dagworth-Granger!”

The brunette girl trooped up, unafraid.

“Ravenclaw!”

No surprise. He could practically see the uptight, bossy know-it-all already cooing about rules and regulations and what her books says, word for word.

Dolohov would get off on her, no doubt. 

The next to go was Ronald Prewitt, not quite a Weasley as Snape had assumed, but not far off.

He joined, oddly, Hufflepuff, to gracious applause.

The other wizard, who in fact turned out to be some Longbottom, a Cousin Snape supposed, was promptly placed in Gryffindor.

Strange.

Very strange.

For friends, they couldn’t be more different.

The last was only called towards the end.

“Poppy Gaunt!”

Lucius, who had been lounging beside him, arm slung over the back of his stiff-backed chair, stiffened. Snape didn’t have the time to question the sudden shift in demeanour from his friend, who had been mocking the transfer students until that point.

He could only smell the shock cresting in his scent, salty.

Rinsed out by the trepidation that came flooding in, sour and tart like vinegar.

And then Snape saw her, for the first time, as she turned to take the seat on the podium.

Initially, he thought the name was wrong because, with those cheekbones and devil-may-care smile, she could _only_ be a Potter. However, it was… Wrong. She didn’t have the hazel eyes of the Potter family, but a startling green the shade of the decisive unforgivable. Too pale too. Flesh like milk in moonlight. Her features were too biting, angled a bit too severely, splendidly serpentine.

Her name suited her, Snape peculiarly thought, a bit gored, as if someone had come along and scooped out his insides and stitched in her.

_Poppy._

Delicate but _deathly_. The flower of fallen soldiers and wars both won and lost. 

Because that’s what she looked like.

A fighter. A survivor. The scar on her forehead, peaking out between her onyx curls, was a gnarly thing. Dreadful, but graceful. A bolt of lightening tearing down her face in a flash of soft scar, touching down over the lid of her right eye.

The hat did not even touch her head.

“Slytherin!”

Lucius whistled low. He said something to Severus, he knew that, but, abruptly, he couldn’t hear properly.

As if he was sinking.

_Drowning._

Muddled and scrambled and-

She came striding to their table, passed him, towards the free seats at the far end, the only ones left, and-

_Fucking hell._

He caught her scent, and that was his second mistake.

It wasn’t sweet. There was no sugar or honey to find skulking there. It was crisp and cold, like snow fall on a mountain top, warmed with the electrical aroma that settled in the air just before a lightening storm. Neither did she have the distinctive flowery note Omegas carried. In its place was something… Dark.

There was nothing gentle to it.

It reminded Severus of black silk, slick and sleek, scaled in crystal.

He wanted to trample the snow and dirty it, stain it with the impression of his boot, of _himself_. He wanted to catch the lightening and feel it _burn_ , scar him, singe his skin, and brand him. He wanted to snatch the scales and silk, squeeze so hard it shattered in his hands, embedded inside, right to his bones, and-

She met his eye as she passed.

He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think, he couldn’t-

She breezed past.

Just like that.

A force of nature, there one moment, gone the next.

“Severus, are you listening? Severus-… Merlin, what has gotten into you! You’re bleeding. The-“

He only snapped back into his body when he felt fingers grasping his wrist over his robe, tactically low, away from his pulsing glands thumping underneath his shirt cuffs.

_Wrong._

It was the wrong fingers, not deft enough, thin enough and-

Lucius yanked his hand.

“Let go of the bloody goblet before you slice a finger off.”

Severus glanced down.

The golden goblet was crumpled in his fist. Shattered and dented. The metal sliced into his palm, but he couldn’t feel it. Not really. Only-

“Excuse me. I feel… Sick. I need… Pomphrey. I’m going to the hospital wing. I’ll… I’ll see you later.”

The goblet clattered to the table. Lucius called his name. He heard none of it as he swept out the Grand Hall.

That was his third mistake, thinking _this_ was something he could simply walk out his system.

All roads, like Rome, lead back to her.

That night, in the sanctuary of his bed, muffliato strung up about him, hand salved and bandaged by a Pomphrey who chided him to be more careful, Severus did something he didn’t do often. He touched himself.

It was normal, he knew, as most teens did it.

Alphas even more so with their simmering libido.

Generally, however, he treated it like a business transaction. Playing his body with precise, swift motions to gain himself some relaxation so he could concentrate better. It was simple that way. Quick. Efficient.

There was none of that perfunctory and dutiful regard that night.

He just couldn’t find it.

He could find _her_ scent though.

Lodged in his brain, rooting in his system, wedged in his nose.

He couldn’t shake it, no matter how many times he blew his nose or, against regulation, downed another suppressor potion all Alphas took on the daily.

It was there, haunting him, tempting, calling-

He ached with it.

Scorched.

He tried to ignore it in the beginning.

Of course he did.

Severus Snape was more than his designation, and even his own body would not tell him what to do.

He’s spiteful, that way.

Spiteful and _aching._

He tossed and turned, and tossed all over again, tacky sheets sticking to his bare, flushed skin.

He felt heavy. Full with… _Something_. Something that had to give. _Drain_. Or he was sure, so bloody sure, he was going to burst.

Blood, spit or semen, something had to pop to ease the pressure.

By the weight of his cock as it twitched and strained between his legs, rigid as iron, his body had already chose for him.

Just this once… Just this once.

He reached down.

He hissed.

He felt hot.

Too hot.

Not _nearly_ hot enough.

He thought of mountain caps, and silk rope, and the lightening came on its own. Piercing through him. He was leaking, he felt, seeping, wet and warm and dark, in his bed. He pumped, he twisted, and it was not enough.

It was never going to be enough to ease the burn.

The ache.

The _want._

He didn't think, then.

He didn't have the capabilities too push through the haze that was choking him.

This was what desperation felt like.

Damp and deep and dangerous.

He was on his knees unexpectedly, ruffling through his bed, shirking sheet and seizing pillow. It was not enough. He needed more. A stiff fist and a winding wrist was not enough.

He rolled onto his stomach, over the pillow, fist back to where it was needed to be, frantically pumping, and he groaned.

Guttural.

Pained.

He sounded like a beast.

He felt like one too.

Feral.

Savage.

There was nothing slow.

He couldn't handle it.

It was fast and brutal and he couldn't stop.

His palm was wet.

His stomach was wet.

His forehead was wet.

Everything was slippery and sleek and stinging pleasantly.

All he could hear was the slap of his own hand, the pounding of his own heart, and the panting breaths he tried to catch but failed, and, Merlin, he could _still_ smell that scent.

Green eyes on fire.

Flesh like milk.

Small. He’d dwarf her. Blanket.

She could take it. He knew she could. Fast, slow, wet, she’d take it and-

The knot stretches at his base.

A knot.

His first.

He’s popping a knot and all he could do was thrust faster, squeeze harder, pump quicker. It was swelling, he could feel, growing impossibly big. Hot hurt that ached so fuckin’ wonderfully as he squeezed. There was a pillow by his head, he shuffled, reached, squeezed, strained, bit and-

_He was gone._

Severus raced, he rutted, still cumming, still going and it’s all he could do but hold onto consciousness as tightly as he was holding onto himself.

He was there, but not really.

He was somewhere else. Somewhere fresh and crisp with silk and soot, and it was not his hand squeezing, but the clasp of a cunt, and he was knotted, locked between pale thighs, not a pillow, and there was not cotton between his teeth, but skin, skin that tasted of moonlight and copper and-

He came back to himself in a puddle of sweat, semen and a halo of feathers from his torn into pillow.

It was a mess.

_He_ was a mess.

Trembling as he was, breathless and still aching, slowly coming down from the high he had gone careening over.

He sagged, boneless.

He could think again.

Feel again.

Most importantly, he bore anger.

Rage.

He hated her then.

Detested her more than he had ever loathed anything, and he had not even heard her voice.

He could not even bring himself to think her name.

Just her.

An abstract shadow looming over him.

_No._

That was it.

It _was._

One fumble with his hand, and he was clean.

Clear.

She would be nothing more than a blip on his senses, as Umbridge was, something to skirt around but overall forget existed.

That was his final mistake.

Thinking life would ever be so easy on him.

He had potions in the morning.

Slughorn placed her right next to him.

_Fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts?


	2. Put A Feather In Your Cap

Severus Snape took two cold showers that brisk September morning. Two cold showers, two vials of suppressors, two more lonely dates with his fist, and just for good luck, though Snape was never a man to leave such significant things to the intangible baptized _chance_ , two squirts of that completely awful Mandrake spray up the nose to numb the olfactory senses.

It was intended merely to be used in emergency environments, such as being stuck with a rutting Alpha or an Omega in heat you were not inclined to… _Help_ , but, Severus thought darkly, his state of sanity _was_ a close quarter crisis.

And it worked.

By seven twenty-four, he was back to himself.

_Relatively_ speaking.

He still had a sort of simmering heat under the collar, one blooming his normally sallow skin pink, a hideous shade if he ever did see one, and his glands were tender in a way he had never felt before, burning and prickly to the touch, but, determinedly, he ignored all that.

Ignored it as he ignored what took place last night in the safety of his bed, and once in the shower, and another in the middle of getting dressed for the day.

It was not a difficult task.

It seemed, in the cold autumn air this morning, to be part… Hallucination. Feverish and frenzied as it had been.

He would have believed it to be nothing but a dream-

_Nightmare_ , he mulishly reminded himself, if he had not awoken that morning infuriatingly fifteen minutes late, in the depraved mess that he had.

He was _still_ picking out bloody feather’s from his dark mane of hair _after_ his second shower.

He must have passed out after-… _After._

It was best not to think about it in too much detail.

Best not to think about it at _all._

Yet, that was before, and this was now, and if anything Severus Snape was good at compartmentalizing his myriad of issues.

So he locked it up.

Locked it up tight, bolted the box, and thrust, perhaps that as the wrong tenure to use given the circumstances, _shoved,_ better but still not great, the whole thing deep into the back of his mind where he hoped never to touch it again, in the dark where it could rot.

As he got dressed for his day, packed his satchel, slung it over his broad shoulder, and left the Slytherin dorms to meet Lucius in the common rooms, Severus didn’t catch hide, hair or whiff of the sudden thorn underneath his foot.

His shoulders sagged.

Why?

He wasn’t quite sure, but he _told_ himself it was in relief.

It was the home stretch now, as his muggle father would say as he got sozzled in front of the telly watching the latest football match as his mother, with fresh fingerprint bruises around her neck, busied herself in the kitchen. Partly to get Tobias’s lunch on the table before she earned herself another slap, and partly to be anywhere else _but_ the room her mate was in.

He shoved those memories into the dark too.

Shoved them deep, deep down.

He needed to concentrate. His first Potions lesson of the term would begin in half hour, and once he was inside, he was safe.

The transfer students were in the year bellow them, or so Bulstrode told Parkinson on the common room chesterfield as he was passing.

_Far away._

Their lessons wouldn’t interject with his own, and, wonderfully, once schooling was in full swing everybody should be kept blissfully busy and far, far, _far_ away.

Far away from his nose, and glands, and Mordred damned mind and-

It was the home stretch.

He just had to make it to Potions.

It was _not_ the home stretch.

Slytherin had Monday morning Potions in the dungeons with Ravenclaw. The Dagworth-Granger girl was already present, waiting outside the door for Slughorn to open up for the lesson ahead, ten minutes early. Lucius cocked a curious brow at him, but kept mum as the two settled a few feet away, awaiting entry.

She shouldn’t be there.

She was in the year below.

She shouldn’t be there unless-

_Unless_ the transfer students were given the option of taking advanced lessons.

And if that was the case, then perhaps-

_No._

Surely not?

Certainly, fate did not hate him so?

Sure, Severus had done some… Dubious things, but never enough to earn this kind of Karma.

He must not have, because for the following ten minutes, ten minutes that felt like a lifetime, as if he were strung up over a cliff, seconds from dropping but the fall never coming, idly paying courtesy to the inane prattle that came emitting out Lucius’s mouth, there was no sign of another transfer student.

Not one.

Just the Dagworth-Granger girl, who reeked of old parchment, ink, earl grey tea and an unforeseen pop of lemon, excruciatingly Alpha. The hallway filled with ready students, in silver and blue.

Severus could hear Slughorn in the classroom behind the stone wall, bustling about, setting the cauldrons ready.

He’d open the door, as he always did, in exactly one minute.

There.

_Safe._

From the corner of his eye, though he swore he had not been watching intentionally, he saw the Dagworth-Granger girl’s face darken into a fierce scowl, peering past him as she caught a glimpse of something down the hall, and fate took the finishing blow on the peel of her voice.

“Circe, Poppy! What happened to you?”

He should be grateful, really, for the unintentional heads up the Dagworth-Granger girl gave him. Just as a blur of white, black and green came sweeping past him, Severus managed an inhale and a swift, sharp hold.

No breathing.

It was fine.

_Truly._

Who needed breath?

Or air?

Or, while he was at it, sanity?

The tiny haze came to a shuddering stop in front of the Ravenclaw. Severus should have waited further away. He should have gone to the back of the orderly file of students as soon as he saw the Ravenclaw waiting at the head. He should of-

But he didn’t.

He didn’t and, from only a few feet away, he could see her perfectly clear.

She looked… Tired. Her Slytherin robes dishevelled, hastily shirked on, her own school bag haphazardly thrown over her chest.

Worst of all, she was _wet,_ he noticed. Glistening in the unfriendly morning sun of the Scottish Highlands, wrangling her dense shock of damp hair into a bun. He saw a bead of water lap down her pale, thin neck, plunging into her moist spotted collar, rolling down asininely leisurely, trailing, dipping-

Fresh from a shower.

A _hot_ shower.

She was still blistered pink on the tip of her nose and arcing cheeks, the slope of her ears, a delightful red the same shade as fresh spring blooms and-

His fingertips tickled as they constricted around the strap of his satchel.

His own shower had been frigid. So cold it had almost burned. 

Her's looked to be as if it nearly melted her skin off. 

Involuntarily, his breath hitched.

The Mandrake spray was expired. So were his suppressor potions. They had to be.

They _had_ to be.

He could smell her even through the cold bite of stone hallways, and the tangy sweat of the students around him, and the overpowering expensive cologne Lucius preferred, even through her little Alpha friend and-

Dear Merlin, he could scent her, and that wasn’t the problem. The suppressors and spray were meant to soften smells, certainly, but their key perquisite was to numb _reactions._

By the unexpected compression of his trousers, there was nothing _subdued_ about Severus Snape below the waistline.

“I overslept. Don’t push it.”

And that was how Severus Snape was damned to the fiery pits of Tartarus.

Not with a smell.

Not with a spell.

Not even with a potion gone wrong.

He was damned with a voice.

There was a bitter bark to her, so out of place on an Omega. Omega’s were typically delicate things, easy in every regard, low and gentle, voices like wind chimes.

This one, _she,_ sounded dusky. Like soot and smoke and smoulder, soft, but in all the dark ways.

If Severus thought her scent was wicked, then her voice was straight from the sticky reveres of all his dirty little dreams, depraved and debauched.

The Dagworth girl did, in fact, push it.

“Overslept? You _barely_ look like you’ve had an hours kip. Are you alright? You’re looking a bit… Rosy.”

She shook her head at the Ravenclaw. She shimmered in the light, glistened like starlight, and if Severus just moved three steps over, only three, and lifted his hand he could-

“I’m fine. I went for a jog this morning and then a shower.”

“I thought you said you overslept and-“

“’Mione, drop it. _Please_.”

The sound of his satchel strap tearing resonated out unbearably loud in the narrow hall as, obviously, it ripped itself clean off the bag in his hold and the whole thing went slipping out his grasp to tumble to the flagstone floor.

His books and parchment scrolls spewed out.

Snape swore under his breath as he stooped to collect his scattered belongings, his voice washed out by the few snickering Ravenclaws behind him, and the elegant huff of Lucius as he too bent to help collect his things hastily.

Poppy glanced behind her at the loud noise.

She met his eye as he crouched, wavering, ensnared, hooked over his belongings. Eye to eye. Black to green.

Her nostrils flared.

Her jaw set like cut glass, piercing and unforgiving. She-

She _glared_ at him.

The potions classroom door opened, Slughorn rounded and jolly in the doorway.

“Hello and welcome! Come, come, we have much to get through today. In you get.”

She bulldozed past the Professor to get into the classroom before Slughorn had finished speaking, leaving him there, stooped over the floor.

It was _one_ lesson. It was going to be tolerable. Particularly because as, the last to enter after plucking up his strewn possessions, and giving himself a moments breather in the hall as Lucius filed in, promising to follow in a moment with the excuse of a headache, Snape chose the desk at the very left back of the echoey chamber, and she, in toe with her Ravenclaw friend, had chosen, perhaps, the most opposite desk to his own at the far front.

Even as the Ravenclaw grumbled about wanting the front and centre desk in the middle of the room, perfect for taking notes from the chalkboard, Gaunt had unforgivingly jostled her to another. 

One lesson, and Gaunt was far across the elongated room, and-

And Slughorn dashed any hope Snape had with smile.

“Ah, wait a moment… you two must be our new transfer students, correct? I never miss a new face, you see.”

Snape could see the Ravenclaw nod.

“Good! May I just say welcome to Hogwarts and I hope you have a fantastic year here with us. I’ve read both of your transcripts, and I must say they are promising indeed! Especially you Miss Gaunt. I look forward to seeing your talents in person. However-“

No _._

No he wasn’t.

He wouldn’t.

Slughorn _would._

“Given the dramatic… Variances, should we call them, in Durmstrang and Hogwarts curriculum, I believe pairing you two up with one of our own students might be beneficial, in the off chance either of you come up stuck. Now who would-“

_Don’t you dare you great, blubbing, myopic sycophant._

_Don’t you do it._

_Don’t-_

Slughorn met his dark gaze through the crowd.

His face lit up.

_Fuck._

“Ah, yes, of course! Severus Snape is our prized pupil in Potions. He would surely help you. How about…”

_Give me the Ravenclaw._

_Give me the bloody Ravenclaw you bastard._

_Do it and-_

“Miss Gaunt, given your own talents, why don’t you move back and take a seat with Mister Snape? Perhaps you two can show each other new practices. Dolohov, move forward and sit with Miss Dagworth-Granger will you, my boy? Yes, yes, that will do nicely.”

Dolohov, who was sedentary beside Snape, began to move, likely excited to get near the Dagworth girl he had been eyeing all morning, but that damned voice cut across.

It was a blessing.

It was a curse.

“I don’t think that is necessary, sir. I assure you; I am well versed in potions. I had a very... Thorough teacher back home. I doubt I will need any further help and-"

“Don’t be silly, girl. Think of it not as help, but a cultural exchange, yes? I’m sure you and our young Snape here have a lot to teach each other. Off you trot now dear, so we can get down to work.”

She stalled near her desk, and even from this distance, Snape could see how rigid her shoulders were.

Stiff.

Inflexible.

Unfortunately for them both, not as inflexible as Slughorn seemed to be on this matter.

She only moved when Dagworth whispered something in her ear.

And then she was moving towards him, crossing Dolohov on his way to her vacated seat-

Looking anywhere _but_ at him.

She took the stall, but only after obnoxiously dragging it across the stone floor, as far away from him as the desk would allow, pressed to its side.

Of course she did.

Of course she didn’t want to sit next to him.

Look at him.

He scowled too much, and snarked too much, and his trousers were hemmed this year for the fifth time and still, even now, only reached his ankles because he never seemed to stop growing. He was lanky in all the wrong places, hard and unforgiving in any light.

Severus Snape knew, painfully, what he looked like.

Yet, he loathed her all the more for it.

This dreadful feeling of… inadequacy she bubbled up in his chest like bile.

Inadequacy he _shouldn’t_ be feeling because he _doesn’t_ want her to look at him and see _more._

More than the awkward boy in the meagre clothing with a frown as his defining feature.

Her bag thumped at her feet, as she kept her gaze dead ahead.

Severus shuffled his own seat as far away as he could.

It didn't help a lick. 

Despite being located in the dungeons, where the stone was dank and icy, the Potions classroom, when the cauldrons were lit, became a sweltering pot. It wasn't uncommon for students in the mists of brewing to whip off their outer robes and roll up their sleeves. For the first time, Severus joined them in losing an article or two of clothing. 

He reasoned that it was the extra two cauldrons added to the classroom that tipped the scale from just bearably warm to boiling.

He almost bought the sound logic too, if the heat didn't bloody flare every time Gaunt decided to shuffle beside him. 

Circe, she'd taken her robe off too. Unbuttoned the buttons to her oxford shirt and he watched, mute, as she tugged her necktie down, loosening the knot, exposing that pale throat- 

Gaunt had not spoken to him.

Not one word.

Neither had she looked his way.

She had gotten her ingredients for the Potion listed on the chalkboard, and set to work as if he didn’t even exist.

That _stung._

The invisibility she blanketed him in.

He wasn't used to such... Neglect. Even if it was to only snicker at his nose, or shimmy away as he entered, people _noticed_ him. When he was a child, crying as his parents argued downstairs, as he heard his father beat-

Well, he had prayed to be invisible then, when he was young enough to believe something as silly as praying would help. Back when he was naive enough to think anybody or anything would ever help him. It never worked. Tobias would stumble up the stairs, drunk again, and find Severus hiding beneath his bed. 

Until he was thirteen and hit his designation, and the rather immense growth spurt with it, where, one night, hearing his mother cry, he had snapped and-

_Not here, and not now._

Snape thought that was what he had wanted, for Gaunt to ignore him and he her, and everything to be peaceful, but it... _chaffed._ Irked him beyond reason that she wasn’t looking, peering, seeing and-

Side by side, silent as could be, barely daring to breathe, the two set to work on their potions.

Gaunt may not have looked, but he sure fuckin' _did._

Severus didn’t mean to watch out the corner of his eye, but he found his attention drifting over, beyond his control, cautious and tepid.

Her hands were as small as she was. Deft and long fingered things. Pale, scarred too, he could see.

_I must not tell lies._

And that burned. Raged in him, yet, another style of fire lit in his gut all together when he saw them _move._

They flowed like water, he thought. Precise, calm, collected. Hands of a person who knew exactly what they were doing. Swift and sweeping as they chopped and diced and descaled the mermaid flesh.

It was _sinful._

More sinful than it should have been watching just a pair of hands prep their ingredients.

His tongue felt fatty in his mouth. Swollen.

_Useless._

As she minced the Hemlock, his own knife stuttered in its chop, chop, chopping, gearing down too fast, and he nearly sliced his bloody pinky clean off. 

Severus thought he could feel those fingers then, gliding on the back of his neck, dancing down his spine, a blaze of fire burning its way down, lighting up his nervous system like a yard of yule tree lights. 

_Sinful._

Absolutely, utterly sinful. 

“You’re doing it wrong.”

The knife stalled in her hand, half-pressed, and it took Snape far too long to realize he had spoken. 

She didn’t look up, or glance over, scowling down at her work, and her voice was as husky and thick as his had inadvertently been.

“I’m not doing it wrong. I’m doing it _differently.”_

Severus glanced to the chalkboard.

Lopus Beatles.

It needed to be _diced_ , not _crushed_ , as she was doing.

“You’re doing it differently _and_ wrong.”

The knife clinked as she slapped it down onto the desk, discarding it as she braced her hands on the table, squaring her shoulders, as if she was fighting down the urge to turn and strangle him. 

_strangle him with those delicate hands and-_

Slowly, she turned. 

Slowly, she met his eye. 

The fire in his gut _burst._

“Can you not bloody speak? I’m trying to concentrate and your voice is-“

Her jaw clamped off keenly, as if she was gnawing her own words between those pretty white teeth all lined in a row. 

“ _Irritating_ me.”

The fire morphed to anger.

He _irritating_ her?

Her; with her scent and her fuckin’ voice and those Circe damned eyes and her... Her... Everything?

“Irritating? If we are on the topic of irritants, perhaps you should learn to shower better. You _reek.”_

They’re like sand and grit, Severus thought. Abrasive, tearing against one another, grinding and-

He winced sharply.

That was _not_ the right thought to be having. 

Her face went that delightful red, and Severus was glad, so very, very glad, he was sitting down.

“Are you saying I’m _dirty?”_

...Wait. 

That wasn't what he had meant. 

She smelt of everything Snape could ever want, of all the things he wanted to wrap himself in and never leave, but what he wanted to _do_ to that scent was decidedly dirty. 

So very dirty.

Nevertheless, Gaunt didn't give him time to answer, no time to fix his misunderstanding, as she rounded on him, eyes lit and face flushed and chest heaving. 

“At least I shower at all. When was the last time you bathed? A week ago? I could smell you from common room to classroom. Everywhere I turn, _there_ your stench is. If we are to be at this table all bloody term, stuck together, do us both a favour and head to the third-floor prefects bathroom sometime soon.”

The snarl rippled across his face, the muscles in his stomach clamping in... in... _Something_. 

“You self-righteous little chit. I’ll have you know I showered this morning when-“

Now it was his turn to chew his own voice, as his jaw clenched and he wavered. 

_When I spent all night wanking myself raw to the memory of your scent and the way your skirt skims your thighs when you walk._

Snape, thankfully, had _some_ self respect to stop himself from spewing all that. 

And then she reached for him. 

Her hand darted out, and she had to pull up on her tip-toes to reach, and there was a flutter in the air as her hand came close, to the side of his head, and it felt like her scent hit him like a back-kick from a pissed off Griffin, straight to his chest-

Straight to his _groin_ and-

Her wrist was close. _Too_ close. All he had to do was turn his head and bite through the shirt and-

His hair ruffled, his neck strained, he began turning and-

Her hand snapped back. 

Held out between them, as she dropped back down to her heels. 

Feather pinched between fingers. 

“Well you didn’t do it well enough, did you? And Merlin dammit, roll your sleeves _down_. Where I’m from, showing off your… Your… Your wrists like that is indecent.”

Severus only heard the rejection, the distaste, the apparent horror of having to see his, _h_ _is_ , glands lining the soft skin of his wrist. 

He couldn't think right, with her so _close_ , with this anger and heat swirling in the bottom of his gut, to cognizantly realize for there to be horror, of any kind, she must have been _looking._

“Then how about you button your collar? I do not know how Durmstrang operates, but Hogwarts isn’t an Omega brothel for you to go around flashing your glands and-“

“So I’m a whore _and_ dirty now? You great big, over-sized oaf with a-“

“You vain tiny terror of-“

A hand slapping down on their desk broke through the steam.

"I said stop this instant!"

The two teens jumped, stumped. 

Slughorn was before them, wide-eyed, staring.

The classroom was-

It was _empty._

Severus glanced back as he heard the sound of shuffling. 

He took a long stride back, as did Gaunt, when the two faced each other again and noticed, in their heated argument, how close the two had pulled together. 

Severus didn't remember standing at all.

As if a bucket of ice water from the Black Lake had been dumped on them, the two jerked away.

Slughorn shook his head disparagingly at the pair. 

“This behaviour will simply _not_ do. Not at all. Severus, my boy, I expected better from you.”

There's a slice of disappointment wedged in Slughorn's voice. 

The professor peered down to their empty cauldrons. 

“If either one of you had been _listening_ , you would know it is the end of lesson, and both of you have failed to produce even the beginnings of the potion I requested. Most dreadful, indeed. Detention, tonight, eight o’clock. You can finish them then.”

Gaunt heckled visibly, as did he, tormented by the idea of another hour in her presence, this time in a vacant classroom and Slughorn who, possibly, would retire back to his personal chambers to mark essays as he got the students to clean the storage cupboard. 

“I have a meeting with Headmaster Dumbledore at eight and-“

“I have an appointment with Professor Flitwick about my last year dissertation on-“

Slughorn clapped. 

Loudly. 

“You both _will_ rearrange your schedules. Not only have you spent the majority of this lesson not working together, as I clearly requested, you spent the last half bickering. Detention.”

Snape was the first to break.

“Yes, Professor.”

Gaunt followed suit, but she sounded as if the Professor had forced her to swallow broken glass. 

“Yes, professor.”

Slughorn nodded.

“Good. Now go. Both of you. Everybody else left twenty minutes ago, though I _tried_ to tell you, you both seemed to be too engrossed in arguing.”

Gaunt fled the scene almost as fast as he did.

_Almost._

Perhaps if he had waited but a moment, one step too late, fought the urge to flee just a little harder, Severus might have saw Gaunt linger at her desk, hand darting out to snatch at the feather she had plucked from his hair and dropped to the table, as she hastily, and maybe, with the flush to her cheeks, shamefully, shoved her prize deep into her robe pocket before yanking up her bag from the floor and storming away down the hall. 

Yet, he didn't, and he saw nothing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts?


End file.
